Have you seen the Sound of Music? Maria at one point is trying to motivate herself into feeling more confident by – of course – singing a song.
I must dream of the things I am seeking.
I am seeking the courage I lack…I have confidence in confidence alone!
Besides, which you see,
I have confidence in me!
The final end of life regret that I want to mention is about being more confident.
I wish I had been more confident – how sad to be on your death bed and to be saying this.
These end of life regrets are all connected of course.
[More on that in a summary next time.]
When we choose to pay attention to our own feelings and manage them well, and be honest about who we are, we can start to let go of comparisons. This is an old post on the comparisons game, but its truths still very much hold.
How to have more confidence.
When we learn to accept who we are and what we can do, and start to live as that person, we gain confidence in being ourselves. If we are constantly wishing we were something or someone we aren’t, not only will we not be free to be ourselves, but our confidence in our own abilities will be rock bottom simply because we do not believe in our own abilities.
We generally are quite hard on ourselves, and can be downright dismissive of our own abilities. Particularly us Scots. But as we start to understand who we are and what we can do, and put those skills and characteristics to good use, our confidence grows.
Equally, as we gain confidence in what we can do, and understand and accept ourselves, we can also grow in confidence and acceptance of what we can’t do. That provides a great opportunity to build someone else’s confidence:
I can do this part of this project/task/exercise/event but I don’t have these …..skills. However, you are great at this – would you do this part, and show me and teach me as you go?”
What a gift to boost someone else’s confidence as well as positioning ourselves to graciously learn something new.
Treating yourself with respect.
We read a lot about self kindness these days. And that is important – sometimes it can be a useful check on our soul to ask ourselves:
Would I treat or speak to a friend the way I treat or speak to myself?
And if the answer is no, then there is scope for change.
But self kindness can feel quite hard to grasp. I love the idea of self respect.
Think about someone you really respect.
How do you treat them? How do you talk to them? What are your beliefs about them? Of course they are not completely sorted or living the perfect life. But confidence with which they are being themselves engenders respect.
Now imagine treating yourself that same way.
How to have more confidence? A first step is to treat yourself with more respect. Because you are a beautiful, unique and extraordinary human.
